THE DAILY NEWS OF LOS ANGELES

DATE: SUNDAY    July 13, 1986
EDITION: Valley  SECTION: News  ZONE: rop  PAGE: 7  LENGTH: MEDIUM
SOURCE:  Daily News Staff and Wire Services
DATELINE:  LOS ANGELES

MYSTERY JET PILOT'S IDENTITY DISCLOSED

    Air Force officials Saturday identified a pilot killed in the 
crash of a mysterious aircraft believed to be a top-secret F-19 
Stealth fighter as guards with automatic rifles sealed off a wide 
area of Sequoia National Forest surrounding the crash site.
     The Air Force imposed strict secrecy about the crash and 
would only confirm the identity of the pilot killed, Maj. Ross E. 
Mulhare, 35, who was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base near Las 
Vegas.
     Mulhare, 35, a native of Fall River, Mass., was married and 
had four children. He was attached to the 4450 Tactical Group at 
Nellis. Air Force officials refused to reveal the group's mission.
     The pilot's father, Edward A. Mulhare of River Edge, N.J., 
said Saturday that his son trained other Air Force pilots ''by 
playing the devil's advocate in the air, by flying like the Soviet 
pilots fly.''
     Mulhare said his son's work was so secret that ''he didn't 
talk to anyone, including his wife, about it, and had to have a 
lie-detector test every three months to prove it.''
     ''I just wanted people to know that we consider our son a 
hero who was doing exactly what he wanted to do, despite the 
danger involved,'' Mulhare said before boarding a flight to be 
with his son's family at Nellis.
     Nellis is one of three sites in Nevada used to test super-
secret aircraft. Its bombing and gunnery range covers about 3 
million acres of desert and mountain areas, and borders on three 
sides the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear weapon tests are 
conducted.
     The other aircraft test sites are the Tonopah Test Range, 
about 200 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where the runway was 
lengthened about one year ago, and a location known only as Area 
51, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.
     So confidential is Area 51 that military officials refuse to 
confirm its existence. It includes*Groom*Lake,*a dry lake bed.
     A recently published book, ''Stealth Aircraft,'' by British 
author Bill Sweetman, says Stealth fighters are tested in a 
closely guarded section of Nellis.
     The F-19, reportedly built by Lockheed California Co. in its 
Burbank plant, has been described as an experimental aircraft that 
would employ the latest electronic technology, materials and 
aerodynamic design to foil radar and infrared sensors. Officially, 
the Air Force doesn't even acknowledge that the aircraft exists.
     ''The Air Force has no comment on what type of aircraft it 
was, where it came from, what it was doing and its mission,'' said 
Edwards Air Force Base spokesman Don Haley.
     Haley said the Air Force was taking special precautions in 
releasing information about the crash.

 KEYWORDS: AIRPLANE; ACCIDENT; DEATH; MILITARY; STEALTH
END OF DOCUMENT.